Posts Written by Sylvia

My feminist writing persona, whose name is Sylvia D. Lucas, exists only because I had already tried creating a slot for my real name, Kristen Tsetsi, in the world of fiction. They say you’re supposed to brand yourself, and the two didn’t necessarily mesh. But now, as a professional newspaper writer using my real name, and as someone who plans to write a very feminist column for that paper, the two names are merging.

The subject of the column was going to be women and the draft. Rather, that the draft has no impact on women whatsoever (unless you count how they’ll feel about losing their menfolk). Once I started thinking about how the Selective Service registry doesn’t require women to sign up, it started to bother me. I couldn’t get the unjustness of it out of my mind. So I created a WhiteHouse.gov petition asking that women be required to register for Selective Service.

In an effort to emphasize that I don’t consider this a small issue, I enlisted the help of a feminist blogger, incidentally one of the first to sign the petition, and one of the ways she’s helping me is by using the following interview as the foundation for an upcoming blog post. I thought about writing a blog-blog, an essay, here, but in a way, the interview is an essay; it’s just in a Q&A format.

As a citizen of this country, I, for one, am always alert to the possible danger I could be in, and if Rick Santorum is aware of new dangers, I think most would agree that it’s our duty to find out what they are and learn how we can protect ourselves.

Now, I’ve used contraception in the past, and my partner has undergone what you might call a “permanent contraception” procedure, so you can understand our concern and the concern of countless others practicing responsible (non)reproductive behavior in light of this most ...

I used to feel very put-upon for being expected to have children (because of this uterus I have), and it was more than irritating to be called “selfish” (one family member I rarely see, and who was therefore probably not aware of my decision, went into a brief rant during a family visit about how self-centered and mean child-free women are).

There have also been articles (written by women) that say child-free women make poor employees, and women without children have been called freaks, sex-haters, cold, and any number of other flattering terms people use to describe the kind of woman who doesn’t want to procreate (you’ll find a comprehensive list in a Psychology ...

I used to feel very put-upon for being expected to have children (because of this uterus I have), and it was more than irritating to be called “selfish” (one family member I rarely see, and who was ...

I recently read a blog entry on a child-free website that was followed by a comment from a woman who went on for some time about how physically disgusting she thought pregnant women were. She wrote that only the child’s father should have to be subjected to the sight of the woman’s bulging abdomen. (It’s very possible this woman is tocophobic.)

Other child-free people will refer to parents as “breeders.” Technically accurate, yes, but offensive nonetheless.

Too often (not most of the time, but often enough), the tone used by some of the child-free when talking about parents is one of not-even-remotely-veiled contempt.

Parents’ joy over their children, the issues they face as parents, and even the fact that they chose to become ...

I recently read a blog entry on a child-free website that was followed by a comment from a woman who went on for some time about how physically disgusting she thought pregnant women were. She wrote that ...

The beginning of my sex life at the ripe young age of none-of-your-business marked a series of get-out-of-pregnancy scenarios I would imagine every time my period was more than two hours late.

– Abortions were expensive, but I was pretty sure my boyfriend would help pay for it. I imagined telling him I was pregnant. And then I imagined him saying, “No way I’m helping you pay for an abortion. I want to keep it. Let’s get married!”

– I’d heard something once about vitamin C in high doses leading to miscarriage, but I wasn’t sure I could rely on it. I checked the medicine cabinet to see if I had some, just in case.

The beginning of my sex life at the ripe young age of none-of-your-business marked a series of get-out-of-pregnancy scenarios I would imagine every time my period was more than two hours late.